Holy Motors with Denis Lavant and Eva Mendes. The Los Angeles Film Critics Association‘s Best Foreign Language Film and a double nominee for the Online Film Critics Awards, Leos Carax’s hallucinatory Holy Motors follows a mysterious man (frequent Carax collaborator Denis Lavant) whose equally mysterious tasks range from playing the accordion to kidnapping a model at a cemetery. Besides Lavant and Eva Mendes (in a role originally intended for Kate Moss), the Holy Motors cast includes Kylie Minogue, Élise L’Homeau, Jeanne Disson, and veterans Edith Scob (Eyes Without a Face, Judex) and Michel Piccoli (Contempt, May Fools).

Leos Carax in, Steven Spielberg out: Online Film Critics Awards

The Online Film Critics Society has announced its list of 2012 nominees; as usual, included are several unusual choices. Really, Leos Carax? Equally interesting are the omissions. (See further below the full, updated list of the Online Film Critics’ nominations and winners.)

In the Best Director category, Leos Carax is in; Steven Spielberg is out. Holy Motors’ Denis Lavant is in the running for Best Actor, but Silver Linings Playbook‘s Bradley Cooper and Amour‘s Jean-Louis Trintignant are out.

More surprises: Leonardo DiCaprio out, ‘The Cabin in the Woods’ in

Dwight Henry is a Best Supporting Actor Online Film Critics Award contender for Benh Zeitlin’s Beasts of the Southern Wild, but Leonardo DiCaprio failed to be shortlisted for Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained.

Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard’s original screenplay for the horror flick The Cabin in the Woods is another contender, but Michael Haneke’s for Amour isn’t – nor, for that matter, is Leos Carax’s screenplay for his Best Picture and Best Foreign Language Film nominee Holy Motors.

Mostly conventional winners

Update: Its handful of daring nominations notwithstanding – e.g., two top nods for Leos Carax’s Holy Motors – this year’s Online Film Critics winners were, as usual, mostly Hollywood-friendly fare. Argo, Ben Affleck’s “imaginative” recreation of history, was selected as the year’s Best Picture while Chris Terrio’s work on the political thriller earned him the Best Adapted Screenplay mention.

Among the other winners were Best Actor Daniel Day-Lewis for Lincoln, Best Actress Jessica Chastain for Zero Dark Thirty, and Best Director Paul Thomas Anderson for The Master.

The Sessions with John Hawkes and Helen Hunt. This awards season, the recently formed Nevada Film Critics Society made a couple of unusual choices in the acting categories: John Hawkes as Best Actor and Helen Hunt as Best Actress (tied with Jennifer Lawrence in Silver Linings Playbook) for their performances as, respectively, a physically disabled virgin and a “sex surrogate” in screenwriter-director Ben Lewin’s The Sessions. Both John Hawkes and Helen Hunt also received Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Award nominations – with Hunt shortlisted in the Best Supporting Actress category.

John Hawkes & Helen Hunt are Nevada Film Critics surprises

Ben Affleck’s political thriller Argo, about the rescue of six would-be U.S. hostages in Iran in 1980, was chosen as the Best Film of 2012 by the Nevada Film Critics Society.

Affleck, who also stars in the film, had to share Best Director honors with the director of another political thriller pitting U.S. agents against Islamic radicals: Kathryn Bigelow, for the controversial Zero Dark Thirty, about the hunt for Osama bin Laden.

Surprisingly, SAG Award and Golden Globe nominee John Hawkes was voted Best Actor for his performance as a disabled man (and virgin) who hires a “sex surrogate” in Ben Lewin’s The Sessions.

Hawkes’ co-star, Helen Hunt (Best Actress Oscar winner for As Good as It Gets, 1997), who has been usually shortlisted in the Best Supporting Actress category this awards season, shared Best Actress honors with Jennifer Lawrence for David O. Russell’s Silver Linings Playbook.

‘Lincoln’ wins three acting awards – but Daniel Day-Lewis bypassed

In the supporting categories the winners were Tommy Lee Jones as Thaddeus Stevens and Sally Field as Mary Todd Lincoln in Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln, which also won for Best Ensemble Cast.

Curiously, Lincoln‘s Daniel-Day Lewis, the North American film critics’ overwhelming Best Actor choice to date, was not singled out. Other Lincoln cast members include Joseph Gordon-Levitt, James Spader, and Hal Holbrook.

Tom Holland was cited in the Best Youth Performance category for his work in Juan Antonio Bayona’s The Impossible, starring Ewan McGregor and Naomi Watts. As it happens, the tsunami/family drama is by far Spain’s biggest box office hit of 2012: $52.99 million vs. runner-up The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2 with $27.95 million.

Curiously, the Nevada Film Critics, who began announcing their winners last year, have Best Visual Effects and Best Production Design categories, but not Best Screenplay or Best Foreign Language Film.

Smashed with Mary Elizabeth Winstead. In James Ponsoldt’s indie drama Smashed, Aaron Paul and Mary Elizabeth Winstead play a married couple with a serious alcohol problem; ultimately, Winstead’s character seeks help from Alcoholics Anonymous and finds a way to recovery. Ponsoldt and Susan Burke’s screenplay has several elements in common with Blake Edwards’ 1962 classic Days of Wine and Roses, starring Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick as the married alcoholics. Though a potential Best Actress Oscar contender, Mary Elizabeth Winstead has a better chance at the Spirit Awards.

From Smashed to The Dark Knight Rises. According to a list compiled by Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences member Ken Rudolph, about 60 movies have been shipped to the 6,000-strong Academy members for Oscar 2013 consideration. Well, assuming that if Rudolph has been getting these DVDs, the other members have been getting theirs, too.

There are a few curiosities: Ang Lee’s Life of Pi was received only on Christmas Eve. In other words, if Rudolph isn’t an exception, then Academy members better watch that movie fast, as the last day of voting is Jan. 4 [Update: The Academy has announced a one-day extension.]

Even though they both opened on Dec. 21 in North America, Juan Antonio Bayona’s The Impossible and Walter Salles’ On the Road arrived in Rudolph’s mailbox the previous month: The Impossible on Nov. 9; On the Road on Nov. 20.

Oscar 2013 blockbuster contenders

Strangely, Joss Whedon’s The Avengers, the year’s biggest blockbuster, is not on Rudolph’s list. Nor is Bill Condon’s The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2 or Marc Webb’s The Amazing Spider-Man. But other big hits with Oscar chances in various categories are included:

eOne Films: ‘A Late Quartet’ in, ‘Cosmopolis’ out

In case Rudolph’s list is complete, then eOne Films made an interesting – and telling – choice. It sent out DVD copies of Yaron Zilberman’s little-seen but well-received drama A Late Quartet, toplining Philip Seymour Hoffman and Christopher Walken, but not of David Cronenberg’s Cannes Film Festival entry Cosmopolis, starring Robert Pattinson.

A Late Quartet is a conventionally structured “inspirational” drama; Cosmopolis is neither conventionally structured nor inspirational. We all know Academy members would much rather be fed the former than the latter.

Anyhow, that surely would come as no surprise to David Cronenberg, who told Movieline:

“Every year I try to be as disconnected as possible [from the Academy Awards]. This year it’s been very easy because we haven’t been nominated for any awards. It’s not sour grapes, it’s not compensation; it’s a relief. It’s very easy to get caught up in it if you are nominated. The people who are releasing the movie get excited, they want you to do more, and you understand it because the awards can maybe get more people to see the film. This, on its face, is a good thing. However, it is all bullshit, it is all annoying and it is all very problematical.”

Oscar voters must scramble to watch 282 movies

In related Oscar 2013 news, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced that 282 feature films are eligible for next year’s Academy Awards in the Best Picture and other “regular” categories.

The Academy’s 5,856 voting members (or those 1,000 or 2,000 or 3,000 or so who actually bother voting) can start casting their ballots – whether electronically or by mail – up until 5 p.m. PT, Thursday, Jan. 4 (following the Academy’s one-day extension).

Since this marks the first time the Academy has set up electronic voting, it’s providing “assisted voting stations” in Los Angeles, New York, and London, in addition to a 24-hour support call center during voting periods (the second round of voting will be for the winners).

The 2013 Oscar nominations will be announced on Jan. 10. The Oscarcast will take place on Feb. 24.

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3 comments

I am soooo glad Robert Pattinson had the amazing opportunity not only to meet but work with such a ingenious and well respected (David Cronenberg) director in the Movie Industry. His decades of knowledge in dealing with the sinister politics in the movie industry is priceless infor for any Young talented actor. Mentored to realize it’s really “The Guy In The Mirror” you have to live with at the end of the day. Awards are great .. But they are not always a validation of true talent. Only popular vote.

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